Kellgren, [Jonas] Henrik (1837-1916)

The collection comprises prescriptions issued by Kellgren at various institutes for Swedish medical gymnastics; namely, the Schwedisches Heilgymnastisches Institut in Gotha, Germany (MSS.5406-5407 and 7869), the Schwedisches Institut für Manuelle Behandlung der Krankheiten, Baden-Baden (MS.7872), the Swedish Institution for the Cure of Diseases by Manual Treatment, London (MSS.5408 and 7870), the Institutet för Manuel Sjukbehandling, Sanna, near Jönköping, Sweden (MS.5409), and the Institution Suèdoise pour le Traitement Manuel des Maladies, Paris (MS.7871). Patients include members of the nobility of the United Kingdom and of Germany, as well as members of the Kellgren and Cyriax families.

1871-c.1910

9 files and 4 small packets (these together containing 1173 items)

The division of the material into two discrete blocks was apparently random and some institutions are represented in both. Within each block of material, the institutions are arranged in chronological order of their earliest prescription, and within the holdings of each institution the prescriptions themselves are held in chronological order.

Purchased from the Royal Society of Medicine, with many other books and papers of Kellgren's son-in-law Edgar Ferdinand Cyriax, in 1956 (acc.303950). The material held as MSS.7869-7872 was held first in the library at Wellcome Collection's Modern Medical ephemera collection, and was transferred to the Archives and Manuscripts Department in February 2001 (acc.900).

[Jonas] Henrik Kellgren (1837-1916) was a practitioner of Swedish medical gymnastics and helped to disseminate the technique beyond Sweden. He was born in Alingsas, southern Sweden, matriculated in 1855 and became an officer in the Swedish Army in 1858. In 1863-1865 he trained at the Kungliga Gymnastika Centralinstitut in Stockholm (founded 1813 by Per Henrik Ling, the pioneer of medical gymnastics), gaining the institute's diploma, and took up the post of teacher of pedagogical gymnastics at Lidköping. Following the death of his wife and son, however, he left Sweden and settled in Germany, setting up the Schwedisches Heilgymnastisches Institut in Gotha. In the early 1870s his health broke down and he retired from full-time work, taking up residence in London. Here he founded the Swedish Institution for the Cure of Diseases by Manual Treatment. An expanding practice was reflected in the foundation of further institutes in the German resorts of Norderney (1877) and Baden-Baden (1883), and in Paris (1884); in summer he took patients to Sanna, near Jönköping in Sweden, leading to the foundation of a sanatorium there. He became the director of the Kungliga Gymnastika Centralinstitut in Stockholm. His son-in-law, Edgar Ferdinand Cyriax, who took up residence in London, was also an important figure in the spread of Kellgren's techniques of Swedish remedial gymnastics and massage to the United Kingdom.

Database description taken from that in: Richard Palmer, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Wellcome Library for the History & Understanding of Medicine: Western Manuscripts 5120-6244 (London: The Wellcome Library for the History & Understanding of Medicine, 1999) and subsequent typescript supplementary finding aids by Richard Aspin, Christopher Hilton, Keith Moore and Richard Palmer.

This material formed part of the papers of Kellgren's son-in-law, Edgar Ferdinand Cyriax. Following Cyriax's death in 1955 his collection of material on medical gymnastics was presented by his family to the Royal Society of Medicine.